Wrong Side
by Fangirl9001
Summary: This is the story of Voldemort's sist-WAIT! COME BACK! She's his HALF-sister, a muggle, who is pulled into a long and bloody mess once her brother starts to hunt her down. No pairings, lots of OCs. Better than it sounds, or at least, I hope.


It was nearly midnight in Little Hangleton. The year was 1943, and a desperately afraid young woman was running as fast as her legs could carry her. She did not dare to look back, scream, or slow her pace as twigs and stones scraped at her slippered feet. Her black hair, usually kept meticulously neat, now flew behind her. Her dark eyes were wide with shock and fear. The young woman nearly flew straight into the thick, tall wooden doors of the local church and she immediately began pounding them.

"Please, please, _please_…" She whispered to herself. Mercifully, the door opened, and a sleepy-eyed Father James Merrick appeared, giving her a curious stare as he let her into the tiny chapel, illuminated only by the light of a few dim candles near the altar.

"Mary Riddle? Is that you?" He said her name with confused astonishment. She nodded gratefully and ran inside. The girl-hardly a girl anymore at seventeen-was shaking and panting hard as she collapsed onto the nearest pew. "Mary...what on Earth happened?"

"You aren't going to believe me. But I give you my _word, _this boy arrived at the house…he looked like papa, but…Father, he had this…_thing,_ it looked like a twig, but it _shot lightning_ at papa and he just…_fell_. I think he might be hurt, there's something very wrong with him…I was still in the foyer, walking in, I saw them… the church was the closest place I could go…"

A brief flutter of recognition stirred in Father Merrick. He glanced at the door, now shut again, and made his way to Mary's side. "Did he tell you his name? Where he was from?" he asked urgently.

"He said his name was Tom, he said that papa was his father. But…he can't be! He simply can't! It isn't possible, is it?" She said, looking very bemused at what she herself had heard.

"Merope's boy…of _course_…" Merrick muttered to himself.

"Who?"

"I must know, you must remember, Mary, this is very important," He looked her in the eye and spoke slowly. "At any point, did you hear him say 'Avada Kedavra'?"

"It sounds familiar, yes, I think he did..." Mary looked thoroughly confused and obviously panicky. "But I thought he was just speaking in tongues, I really think we should-"

"Come with me," Father Merrick said shortly. "And hurry." He led her out the door and began briskly walking straight into town. "I'll explain everything once we get there."

"Explain _what_?" Already tired from her run, Mary was struggling to follow him. They walked through the center of town-now utterly empty at this hour of the night-and headed to the part of town that her mother, Cecile, had always warned her against. Strange types, mother used to say. Tramps and thieves and the type you shouldn't trifle with. Yet here Father Merrick was, pulling her wrist straight past every shanty.

"Magic," The Father was telling her as they ran, "You must know-never tell-that it's…it's real, it's something a person's born with, my whole _family_ was born with it, except for me, of course…"

"_What_?" Surely, she thought, she had misheard him, he wasn't well, perhaps. She could have sworn that he'd said-

"Magic. Wizards. They use wands, Mary, and some…use it to do horrible things." He had stopped at a miserable little shack on a street corner and now turned to Mary, gently placing his hands on her shoulders. "You saw it with your own eyes. I'm afraid the lightning, and that spell…" A look of horror spread across Mary's features.

"You don't mean-"

"They're in a better place now, Mary…" he said quietly. He knocked gently at the shack's door, and the gray-haired witch who answered opened the door just in time to watch Mary scream and dissolve into sobs.

"James? What brings you here at this hour?" asked the woman. She turned inside and shouted, "OI! Father Merrick's here and he's got the Riddle's girl with him!" She turned to the, both, looking a bit alarmed at the girl's hysterics.

"Come in, come in…" The old witch opened the door. Mary did not notice that the woman was decked out in strange black robes as she walked in.

"Thank you, Miranda, I'm afraid we have a very large problem on our hands," Merrick said.

" What's happened to _her_?" She looked nervously at Mary as she offered the weeping girl a chair. The shack looked somewhat better from the inside; the walls and floor were old but clean; every piece of furniture around them looked rickety but inviting. Shaking, Mary sank into a chair nearby.

"Her brother," Merrick explained quietly. Miranda gasped.

"I knew it, I knew it, no child of Gaunt's was ever any good, all sick in the head, the lot of 'em, what'd he do?"

"The Riddles are all dead," Merrick whispered. Miranda looked utterly shocked.

"_Blimey, _you can't be serious. The lad's not twenty, how could he possibly have pulled _that _off?" Miranda stared, wide-eyed, as her family-a blonde balding old wizard and their son, around Mary's age-entered the room.

"Why's she here, Father Merrick…what happened?" Miranda's husband, Roger, asked, confused. She quietly whispered what had gone on. "Good _Lord_…Is she okay?" He turned to Mary, who had stopped crying but hadn't looked up.

"Of course she isn't," Replied the son. He turned to her gently. "I'm so sorry. Here." He pointed his wand at her and out of the tip flew a handkerchief. She gave it a long, horrified look and did not take it.

"Please. This…I don't want to see any more of those…_things_," Mary sniffed. She waved a limp hand at the wand.

"Mary, you're looking at the only other wizards in this town," Merrick said gently. "They're the only ones who can keep you safe until this all blows over, you simply can't _stay_ with muggles."

"With what?" Mary looked up. This new word clearly put her on edge again.

"Muggles, people without any magic," the son explained, handing her a napkin from the table. This she took gratefully and dabbed at her reddened eyes. "If your brother-"

"_I don't have a brother_!" Mary cried. An uncomfortable silence settled over the group.

"Tom and Cecile never told her. I'm not sure that Cecile ever knew," said Merrick. At Mary's confused stare at him, he continued. "The Gaunts are an old family of wizards that live out on the outskirts of town. Marvolo lives out in an old house with his son-Morfin, was it?-and Merope, his daughter."

"Oh, those.._tramps_, they…" Mary's eyes widened; she gave an involuntary shudder and sniffed.

"Our sentiments exactly," Miranda nodded. "Not all wizards are like them, though, just know that. It's bad blood, they've got. _We_ don't use these wands for hurting anyone." her voice was gentle as she faced Mary, but once the girl spotted the wand Miranda was holding she immediately recoiled. The loud scraping of her chair as she drew back seemed to hush all the frantic whispers in the room, mainly among Merrick and Roger.

"Right, then," he said quickly, glancing at his wife and son. "Mary's staying here, for the time being-" He was interrupted by a moan, from Mary, who rushed to Merrick's side.

"Please, Father, don't make me stay with them…a convent, I could stay in a convent, I could stay with another family, with…with someone…_normal_," she gave a worried glance at the wizarding family. Merrick sighed, and had turned to leave. Desperate, Mary took Merrick by the sleeve. "Father, don't leave me here. I'm _begging_ you-"

"Mary, please, try to adjust," Merrick glanced out the window with a worried frown. "You're safe here, and only here. Until we can find that boy, the Attaways were kind enough to take you in."

"But…" she leaned in, whispering, glancing back at the bewildered family. "What if_ they_ kill me? They've got those same sticks that that _other_ boy had, they could do whatever they _want_ with me."

"Trust, Mary. These people aren't going to hurt you, or transfigure you-change you into an animal, that is-"

"They can _do_ that?"

"Yes. They can. But they _won't_. Mary, _promise_ me you'll stay with them until this can be sorted out." The thin, trembling girl before him looked ready to run from the house as fast as she could. He made his way to the door, turning once more to her before he left. "They will treat you with kindness, and you _know_ that it's the right thing to do the same."

"…Please come back," she finally whimpered, frightened yet resigned. Father Merrick stopped in the doorway and turned.

"I'm sorry?"

"Come back," Mary repeated. Her voice dropped again to a whisper. "Make sure they haven't turned me into a newt, or something…" Merrick would have laughed had she not looked so seriously distressed. Instead, he nodded.

"I will be back. Very soon.You hopefully won't be staying here for very long, regardless." He looked up, nodded, and left.

He would turn out to be wrong on both counts.


End file.
